Bread Makes You Fat?!?!

Hmmm... Courtney's original plan was to write a big account of our big debauched few days in Amsterdamage only to, SURPRISE, reveal it was all a joke... I'm left wondering what to write about now I'm not able to be the sensible one. There's also a guy behind me in the internet cafe talking really loudly on the phone. I can't tell if he's angry, or if he's just German.

I just want to express my dislike of hostels that don't have kitchens. The one we're in now in Berlin doesn't have a kitchen at all, Paris had a kitchen but no utensils, and Amsterdam had a kitchen, but no stove. At least in places where they have a jug we can substitute pasta or rice with something like Deb. In case you were wondering, in England they call Deb 'Smash' and in Amsterdam they call Smash 'Puree Aardappel', or some variation there upon. Needless to say, it took us quite some time to find it in Amsterdam. Surprisingly, it tastes very passable when mixed with some kind of tinned fish and vegies. We do wonder whether the lack of kitchens is a result of 'people don't cook so we don't provide kitchens' or 'we don't provide kitchens so people don't cook.' For holiday goers, I'm sure their budgets accommodate eating out every night, but for us it's straight up next to impossible. Subsequently the base food for many meals ends up being bread. Just as well sliced bread over here is about a million times yummier than at home.

So far, the Van Gogh museum is probably my favourite. It's not that Van Gogh's style was particularly extraordinary or original. In fact, in the museum when put in context it's obvious just how derivative he was. He pretty much decided in his twenties that he wanted to be a painter, and then self taught by copying everyone who impressed him. The thing that I adore about his paintings is the colour. I found myself turning from one painting to another and going 'Oh...' at just how gorgeous the next one was. It's not often that happens. The Musee D'orsay would be the next on my list for rad museums though.

Something else of note there; The roads are terrifying. They tend to go bike lane, car lane, tram lane, car lane, bike lane. Courtney and I took to just putting our heads down and running. Still not being quite familiar with the way cars go over here, it's really for the best. The most terrifying of all the fast moving people movers were the bikes. EVERYONE RIDES!! Apparently they make a game of hitting tourists. Emi said she'd seen people mown down, and a tour guide advised us 'If you hear a bell, run!'

As for our Amsterdam tour guide, what a bore... such a pity. We stayed with the tour long enough for him to show us a piece of pavement outside a church (in the red light district) where an artist had removed a stone and replaced it with a sculpture of a bronze breast. It was put there in the seventies and in the one day it was their enough people saw it to decide that they really liked it. The church however, did not. It was removed the next day and protests ensued only for it to be put back where it was. The artist has still never come forward to claim their praise. Cool.

To be honest, nice as Amsterdam was, it didn't blow me away. This may be because I wasn't off my nut on space cakes or because I wasn't too drunk to know any better, but it felt a bit flat. I can imagine there are some places in The Netherlands that are infinitely better. As we drove in on the bus I saw the most beautiful landscapes we'd seen yet. It's so flat and green and fertile. So many crops and orchards and fields full of cows and small holdings. Even on our ride just out of Amsterdam it immediately became more appealing (if windy. It's very windy...) So often driving along the road from place to place means seeing whatever ugly trash happens to be on the side of the motorway, but this was stunning. The scale of the wind farms here is breathtaking too. Every ten minutes or so you'll see a cluster of 5-10 red and white towers looming over the countryside and spinning lazily. They're gorgeous. And so sensible. If only Australia would harden up and get over the unspoiled views of their sheep paddocks, maybe they'd realise just how sensible.

I also really enjoyed waking up to this text from my dad: 'The red head is back!' Nice try Mr Abbott. Now crawl back into the hole you came from please.

All in all, apart from a very nice bike ride, not very eventful. I'll post photo's later and look forward to writing about Bangin' Berlin.

LOVE Bron xoxoxo

For the record... as uncomfortable as they look, I think clogs are very practical...